The "Sissi" trilogy from the fifties with Romy Schneider in the title role is an integral part of the annual Christmas TV program, nurtures princess dreams and has been contributing to the legends surrounding the Empress of Austria and the Queen of Hungary for decades. Now, the director and screenwriter Frauke Finsterwalder wants to clean up with these stereotypes. Her project "Sisi - Empress Elisabeth" is a feminist film that shows the life of the ruler of Austria in a "radically new way", announces the lender DCM.
"Movies should always create a new myth, I want to show that Empress Elisabeth was a radical, intelligent and modern woman, far more than the Sissi with double S that we all know Elisabeth was born just a century too early" , said Finsterwalder, who had a surprise success more than six years ago with her debut feature film "Finsterworld" (read the review here).
As with her first album she writes according to the rental also on the current script with her husband, the author Christian Kracht. The author ("Imperium", "Faserland") had recently caused a stir with poetry lectures and readings in Frankfurt. At that time he had publicly talked about being abused as a twelve-year-old.
From the perspective of Sisi's lady-in-waiting Irma, Finsterwalder and Kracht want to show a woman who for years dares to travel all over Europe without her husband, surrounded only by women, knows six languages, plays high-performance sport and with her free spirit does not fit into the tight corset of the Viennese court.
The filming of the "feminist film with elements of deep black comedy" is scheduled to begin in autumn 2020.